Free FACETS (JAKE SCARNE THRILLERS Book 6) by Lawrence de Maria

The chain disappeared into the folds on her neck. The glasses did not need a chain to keep them from falling to the desk. Her breasts would have stopped them. Willet could feel the eyes of the students nearest the desk on him. He thought he heard a snicker.
    “I’m not a full professor. I’m an adjunct.”
    “Oh, that explains it,” she huffed. “Is it important, Mr. Billet?”
    “It’s Willet. It concerns one of my students.”
    The grotesque woman stared at Willet for some time. I should have said I was a maintenance man here to fix a light bulb in Swartzberg’s office, he fumed. But it would not do to make too much of a scene.
    “As soon as Dr. Swartzberg is finished with his current appointment,” Mulgready finally said, “I’ll try to fit you in. Although, as I noted, he is very busy. Take a seat.”
    Willet, who knew just how easy the life of a top-tier academic was, especially a Dean, swallowed a sarcastic response. If he antagonized the Irish bitch, he’d probably be stuck there until graduation. He sat, trying not to make eye contact with the students, who by now were all amused.
    Twenty minutes later the door to the Dean’s office opened and a young man came out. Mary Mulgready looked at Willet and sighed, and then heaved her considerable weight out of her chair and went into her boss’s office. A moment later she emerged and crooked a finger at the adjunct.
    “Dr. Swartzberg can spare five minutes.”
    He got up and quickly walked past her, shutting the door behind him. Swartzberg was sitting behind his huge captain’s desk, writing something on a yellow legal pad. He looked up and smiled.  
    “Luke, how nice to see you. You shaved off your beard and mustache. I hardly recognized you.”
    Willet was surprised that Swartzberg remembered his first name.
    “I thought it would be too hot for the summer,” he said.
    And, he thought to himself, if anyone remembered a bearded man picking up a girl on Riverside Drive, that man no longer existed. Nor did the maroon Camry, which he had repainted black the day after the kidnapping. Willet knew his students would be astounded at how good he was with spray painters and other power tools, the result of years of bouncing around at odd jobs before he resumed teaching. Alana Dallas discovered how fine his work was when she made her obligatory attempts to break out of her prison. She was barely able to scratch the edges around the door and bolted window in her room. She gave up after a few tries and Willet did not even punish her for the initiative. He would have expected no less from her. His magnanimity in that regard was an even more powerful deterrent than abuse, since it convinced the girl of the hopelessness of her situation.
    “Probably a good idea. Well, Luke, what did you want to see me about? Mary said something about a student.”
    Again, the first name, Willet thought. As if I was an equal and not someone who had to wait outside his office like a goddamn freshman.
    “Well, Joshua,” he said, thinking that two could play the name game, “I am concerned about one of them.”
    “Please, call me Josh. Everyone else does. We’re colleagues, after all.”
    But not good enough to be invited to a faculty party, Willet fumed. He pulled a slip of paper from his jacket pocket and glanced at it, to make it appear as if he wasn’t sure of the name. “Her name is Dallas, first initial A.” (That was a nice touch, he thought.) “She’s matriculating at Barnard but taking some courses here at Columbia. She is in my English Lit class but has not shown up in weeks. One of the other students said he thought she was seriously ill. Finals are coming up. I wouldn’t flunk a sick kid. And I wonder if even an ‘Incomplete’ is justified. Her work has been first-rate.”
    “Oh, yes, Alana Dallas. Know all about it. Sorry the word hasn’t gotten down to you. Should have. Fell between the cracks, I guess. You know how it is in a busy university.”
    Willet